Summary

Michelangelo comes to Rome, a city with no government; a waste heap and a dunghill; with crews of workmen cannibalizing ancient structures for their building material. The building stones are so poorly crafted that “Florence would not have paved its streets with these botched building stones!” But the workmen show no interest in improving, no pride in their work. The city is partitioned off into different neighborhoods, with each responsible for their own security and their own management. Cardinal Riario offers him a commission and buys a seven-foot-tall, four-foot-wide fine piece of Carrara marble for a statue. But the Cardinal cannot decide upon a subject, and does not give Michelangelo leave to select a subject of his own.

He draws dozens or hundreds of models, finding the Romans unselfconscious about posing in the nude, but has no income, and no subject for his marble. Michelangelo’s father sends...